Trump State Dept. has launched probe into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified emails … and she STILL has security clearance to access sensitive data

At a political rally in Iowa Wednesday night, President Donald J. Trump’s speech to supporters was interrupted with chants of “Lock her up!” — a reference to vanquished Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s criminal mishandling of classified emails and other data during her stint as President Obama’s secretary of state.

Trump said he certainly understood the sentiment, which may have been in reference to recent testimony by fired FBI Director James Comey, who told the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch ordered him to refer to the bureau’s criminal email investigation of Clinton as a “matter.”

In addition, the president, during his campaign, himself made pledges to investigate Clinton’s email scandal, which involved her improper use of a private, unsecured server.

That process may now be underway, though not formally by the White House.

Fox News reported this week that the State Department has launched a new formal inquiry into Clinton’s email scandal, a probe that includes some of her top aides. But more worrisome — and confusing — to critics is that Clinton still retains her top secret security clearance and still has access to sensitive government information.

The report noted further:

The department’s investigation aims to determine whether Clinton and her closest aides violated government protocols by using her private server to receive, hold and transmit classified and top-secret government documents. The department declined to say when its inquiry began, but it follows the conclusion of the FBI’s probe into the matter, which did not result in any actions being taken against Clinton or any of her aides.

If investigators for the nation’s diplomatic service find sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, Clinton and the aides involved in the probe — which was confirmed to Fox News by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa — could lose their clearances and, thus, their access to sensitive information.

That’s precisely what should have already happened, argue critics.

Among them is Chris Farrell of the conservative government legal watchdog organization Judicial Watch, which has filed several lawsuits related to Clinton’s email scandal. He told Fox News that Clinton and her “circle of national security criminals” should not now have any access whatsoever to any sensitive, classified data.

“Their conduct has cost them that privileged position of special trust and confidence,” he said, nothing that any other government employee would have been arrested and charged with violations of law under 18 U.S. Code Sec. 792(f), which is “Mishandling National Defense Information.” If found guilty, the accused would then be subject to a long prison sentence and very large fines, he added.

“This flagrant double standard for the gang that exposed Top Secret Codeword material to the Russians, Chinese and others is both offensive and deeply corrosive to the intelligence community,” Farrell noted. “There is no better evidence that when it comes to Hillary Clinton and her côtèrie — laws are for the little people.” (RELATED: Report: Email in Clinton probe led Obama AG Lynch to promise protection against prosecution of Clinton)

In a July 5, 2016, statement to the media, Comey detailed a litany of national security violations Clinton had committed, but then failed to recommend she be prosecuted. During his recent Senate testimony he said he didn’t recommend indictment because he didn’t believe Lynch’s Justice Department would follow through.

In addition to the new State Department inquiry into Clinton’s email, Grassley said his committee launched its own probe in March, citing Comey’s July 5 statement that the FBI found that Clinton and her staffers were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

Grassley also has noted that he believes there is “evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information…”

During their initial probe, FBI investigators discovered seven Clinton email chains on her computer classified at the “Top Secret/Special Access Program” level — at the very top of the most sensitive information. Another 2,000 emails discovered were not classified at the time but were later classified.

They also found an additional 22 emails that were deemed too damaging to national security to even be released.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

FoxNews.com

TheNationalSentinel.com